


Asia- Heat of the Moment

by gwevyan



Series: Dean's Playlist [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwevyan/pseuds/gwevyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets persecuted by hot baristas and realizes something disturbing about his relationship with Sam. How's he gonna fix this one, when Sam doesn't even think anything's wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hunt for a Tennessee werewolf turned into a hunt for a Tennessee werewolf _pack_ , and Dean silently agrees with Sam's bitching and moaning that they need a goddamned _break_ after this one. They're both battered and chewed on and sore, and Sam got knocked into a couple trees and Dean spent some time being trampled into the dirt (he's got the perfectly paw-shaped bruises on his back to show for it, too), so he limps to the motel office as soon as they roll back up and pays for a full week.

Sam seems surprised that he's willing to stay put in one spot for their agreed-on break, rather than just aimlessly driving, but Sam also doesn't know there's another paw print bruise on his backside.

Baby's low-slung leather seats aren't all that forgiving on backside bruises.

So they spend that night relaxing, drinking a couple beers, eating their way steadily through a couple pounds of greasy Chinese food. Sam's so tired he doesn't complain once about the food, even though it's so salty Dean's tongue feels a little burnt by the time he's halfway done with his fried rice.

When Sam's nodding off over a carton of General Tsao's and maybe too sleepy to say 'no' Dean offers to give him another black eye, so the one he got from the werewolves won't look so lopsided. He's too sleepy to say anything, apparently, but manages to level Dean a decent bitchy glare and stumbles out of his chair to flop on the bed without stains.

SPN SPN SPN

The next morning Dean wakes up with the kind of grogginess that only comes from getting roughed up too much the night before and following it up with too much food. Sam looks about as bleary as he feels, so they skip breakfast for a bit and head straight to the nearest coffee shop.

"So what're you gonna get?" Dean teases as they climb out of the car. "Skinny caramel latte, heavy on the whipped cream or are you thinkin' a vanilla strawberry mocha with cinnamon rainbow sprinkles?"

"Bite me," Sam mutters, and lumbers up to the shop. As he opens the door Dean quickly reaches out and smacks the back of his head.

"Don't sass me so early in the morning."

"Ow," Sam mutters, and rubs the back of his head with a scowl like a wet kitten. Dean snorts and swaggers up to the pretty girl behind the counter, feeling a little tiredness shake off at the sight of her: bleached hair with an inch of brown roots, face-full of makeup at eight a.m., tight white blouse unbuttoned lower than the top of her apron. Eighteen, nineteen, _maybe_ twenty. Young, advertizing, and low self esteem. Just his type.

"Hey, sweetheart," Dean says with a wide smirk, leaning one elbow on the counter. "I'll have a big black coffee." He lets his gaze trail obviously down the line of her open collar to where it disappears under the apron, then flicks back up to her eyes. Huh. She's giving him a look like he's still covered in mud and werewolf shit. _Guess she has self esteem after all._ Recouping, he waves a hand over his shoulder at Sam. "He'll have whatever you've got that's super girly and comes with lots of sprinkles."

The girl actually scowls at him, then shifts deliberately to look past him to Sam. She smiles gently and says in a kind voice like Sam is a little kid, "What can I get for you, darlin'?"

_What the hell?_

Sam mumbles something about vanilla lattes. Huh. Maybe Sammy was doing those pathetic puppy eyes at her. Yeah, that was probably it.

They get their coffees- well, Sam's is handed to him, Dean gets his slammed down on the counter and the girl turns pointedly away before he can point out she's forgotten to put on one of those heat sleeve things like she'd slipped on Sam's latte.

Huh.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam declares that latte to be one of the best he'd ever had, and remarks on the pastry case they'd bypassed in favor of a pancake house with a Dean-worthy offering of fried eggs and bacon, so they go back the next morning. Sam is so excited by the prospect of a decent latte in rural middle America that he completely ignores Dean's rather clever insults the whole ride over, and practically skips up to the café door.

The unworthy big brother in Dean wants to break down howling in laughter at the thought of gargantuan demon-killing hunter Sammy Winchester _skipping_.

The better big brother in Dean notices that Sam's tshirt, in a way yesterday's flannel buttonup hadn't, shows off the ugly green bruises around his neck where a vampire tried strangling him a week or so ago.

The unworthy side wants to sneer and grumble about how Sammy always seems to get the more badass injuries. Seriously. Strangulation bruises vs. paw prints on the ass? Sam can get sympathy sex with those. Dean can only have sex with someone willing to let him get undressed in the dark.

Today the blonde girl is joined by a black-haired colleague about the same age with sweeping eye liner and warm coffee-colored skin. They look up when Sam bounds through the door and the blonde smiles, the darker girl giving his brother a solid up-and-down leer before she smiles, too.

Then the blonde catches sight of Dean behind Sam's absurdly broad shoulders, and she scowls. She nudges the other girl and mutters something into her ear. The other girl frowns, too.

Sam's all bubbly and happy as he orders some stupid girly drink and a blueberry scone. No, a cinnamon roll. No, the blueberry- he dithers and wavers back and forth about a million times before the dark girl laughs and winks and tells Sam a big boy like him needs to keep up his strength, so why doesn't he get both? The cinnamon roll's on her.

Sam ducks his head and laughs all embarrassed like an idiot before he shuffles down the counter to wait for the blonde to make his drink and throw chocolate chips on it. Dean, feeling a little unsettled, forgoes the flirty smirk and just smiles genially at the brunette. She has her arms crossed and an unimpressed look on her face.

"Black coffee, please," Dean says politely.

The corners of her mouth turn down and she grabs a cup with what seems like unnecessary violence. "I hope you at least let him ice those bruises on his throat," she hisses.

Dean blinks. "Huh?"

The girl glowers and her eyes flicker to Sam and back. Dean glances over. Sam's chatting cheerfully with the blonde as she froths something in the espresso machine, both of them smiling widely. The bruises on Sam's neck stand out starkly in the fluorescent lighting of the café.

"Oh, those? Nah, Sammy's fine. He always pisses off the wrong guy but he's tough," Dean lies quickly, pasting on a big grin.

When the girl slams his coffee on the counter, she's forgotten to put a lid on it and scalding liquid splashes all over his hand.

SPN SPN SPN

Dean's feeling a little annoyed that afternoon and Sam's a little caffeine high, so when Dean pulls out the motel-provided pizza delivery menu and says he's ordering them an extra-large bacon-sausage-pepperoni, and Sam demands he hand the menu over because _he_ ' _s_ calling in to order them an extra large vegetarian feast so they can actually get some vegetables this week, they don't decide to settle it like adults.

They settle it like men.

About half an hour of grappling on the bed later, the menu's shredded into bits, Sam's got fresh bruises ringing his wrists along with a darkening black eye, and Dean's bent over gasping in pain from the last few minutes Sam spent with a knee digging into his kidney- followed up with that knee in his groin, which finally ended the fight.

"Sorry," Sam pants, sprawled out on his back with his chest heaving. He sympathetically pats Dean's shin, which is the only bit of him he can reach without moving. "You okay?"

Dean glowers. "Not cool, man," he grumbles, shifting his hips a little to try and relieve the sharp ache in his abdomen. "That was a seriously cheap shot."

"I didn't mean to," Sam offers, and Dean would bet every gun he owns that Sam's eyes are wide and pleading and pathetic. "I was trying to get my knee centered in your back so I could pin you right but then your knees slipped and you…spread your legs."

"And _your_ knee slipped right down into my balls. Yeah, I got the picture, Sam. I was there."

They lie there a minute more, then Sam gets up to find the bits of the menu and put them together to get the phone number. He calls in and contritely orders a meat-lovers deluxe.

SPN SPN SPN

They go back to the coffee shop the next morning sort of on autopilot. The two girls are there again, but this time, they don't even smile at Sam. They look up, take in the view, then spring into action.

The brunette hurries around the counter and grabs Sam's arm, saying something in a hurried voice about the stock rooms and high shelves and could he just-

The blond hurries and the counter, grabs Dean's arm, and drags him outside.

She wrenches her hand away as soon as they're on the sidewalk like she can't stand to touch him any longer than she has to.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she spits.

Dean stares at her, nonplussed. "What?" he says blankly.

The girl looks utterly furious. "How could you- you're a monster!"

"Listen, kid," Dean snaps, because this really isn't funny anymore. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about-"

"Of course you don't," she snorts, folding her arms tight over her chest. "And you'll probably say the same thing to the police, and maybe he will, too, if you've got him brainwashed, but _I-_ "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean says quickly, holding up his hands. What the fuck is going on? "Look, I really don't know what you're talking about, so why don't you just explain it to me, huh?"

The blonde sneers at him like he's the meanest life form on earth. "You're hurting him," she says, her voice low and ugly. "And you don't even bother trying to hide it. I don't know how you're controlling him, but we're taking him away so he'll be safe and can get some help. And if you make one move to stop us, we're calling the police." She jabs one pointy-nailed finger in Dean's chest and he stumbles back, feeling stunned. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you? Those fingermarks around his wrist- what did he do, huh? Talk back to you a little? Maybe he hinted he's not happy with the guy who _beats_ and _humiliates_ him?"

"What the- no!" Dean cries. He's- he's shocked. He's horrified. These girls think he's _beating_ Sam? It'd be laughable if she weren't so obviously serious. How could anyone think he'd-

Dean's mind skips and shudders to a halt.

"Look," he says urgently. "You've got it all wrong. Sam and I, we're brothers, see? He's my kid brother, we're on a road trip, you know, sometimes we just roughhouse and stuff. I got bruises all over my back just like he's got on his face. Wanna see?" Dean pulls at the hem of his tshirt.

The girl frowns. "Yeah right," she says, but her voice is uncertain. Dean seizes on it.

"Yeah. Come on. Sam!" He yells for his brother as he pushes back into the coffee shop. Sammy's standing there like nothing's wrong, stuffing his face with a gooey cheesecake brownie.

"Hm?" Sam asks, washing down his mouthful with something beige and foamy.

"Sam, please tell these girls I'm not your abusive lover."

Sam spits out his drink. " _What_?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "They saw your bruises and figured I was wailin' on you 'cuz I'm an abusive asshole."

Sam's mouth twitches like he thinks he should be laughing. "Well, you are kind of an asshole."

"Sam," Dean sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose because the brunette is reaching for the phone on the counter with a threatening look in her eyes.

Sam rolls his eyes. "He's not my…partner, and he's not hurting me," he tells the girls with a pacifying smile. "I mean, yeah, he _hurt_ me- same as I hurt him last night when we were fighting over the pizza menu. You wanna see his back where I got him in the kidneys? I got him in the balls, too." The bitch grins like he's all proud of himself.

"Thanks for that, Sammy," Dean grumbles, but Sam's pretty much got him _by_ the balls right now so he doesn't say it too loud.

SPN SPN SPN

Dean doesn't go back to the coffee shop, even though the mortified-but-unapologetic girls offer him free drinks for the rest of their stay in town. They offer Sam the same, and he takes them up on it with the kind of enthusiasm he usually saves for discussing moldy old books with Bobby.

Sam drinks lots of lattes.

Dean drinks lots of whiskey.

Because the thing is, no matter how drunk he gets, he can't get the idea out of his head. And then when they get in the car to drive to a nearby fruit stand the coffee shop girls recommended and his health-freak brother really wants to visit, Sam reaches out to change the radio station, and Dean automatically smacks his hand away from the dash. They trade the usual smartass insults, then grin to themselves, just like always; except- except this time, Dean notices Sam shaking his fingers out like they smart, even though he's laughing, and Dean notices the angry red mark across Sammy's hand where he'd hit it, and Dean notices a sick twisting feeling in his gut that lasts all the way to the fruit stand, where he buys his startled brother as much fruit and berries and weird raw vegetables as they can fit in the back seat.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean doesn't really settle until that stupid town with its stupid coffee girls is getting tiny in the side mirrors, car kicking up dust and pumping out a bass solo. Sam gives a few funny looks but he's used to Dean getting antsy after spending too long in one place (except Bobby's, but his place is almost like a home base, so. Different) and he doesn't say anything, just shrugs and packs his things away and asks where they're heading next.

Dean mutters something about 'north' and 'west' and maybe something about a ghost. Well, whatever. There's probably a ghost somewhere between them and Wisconsin. Mm. Wisconsin. Dairy. Whipped cream. Whipped cream on _pie_. Yeah, they're going to Wisconsin.

They find that ghost sooner than he expected, too.

They're driving through one of those old-style wooden covered bridges one evening, right around sundown. Dean puts his window down and orders Sam to do the same so he can hear the car's rumbling purr echo off the wooden tunnel walls; Sam rolls his eyes just to be obstinate, but he does. His baby purrs and growls and the sound bounces around them. Dean sticks his head out the window to whoop and hear it better.

Then he sits back down.

"Sam," he says, very calmly. "Either my car is making 'clop clop' noises- and I know she's not- or we got invisible horses on our tail."

Sam shoots him a surprised look, like he thinks Dean might be joking, but when Dean pulls off the road at the end of the bridge Sammy puts his game face on and gears up. Dean turns the car off and they climb out in sync, well-practiced movements allowing them to get armed and get up and at 'em at right about the same time. Sam rounds the front of the car and they face the empty bridge together- and the oncoming sound of hooves trotting on wooden boards.

The hooves pull up sharply as the sound comes to the end of the bridge, and invisible horses snort and shift in place.

"What do you think, Sam?" Dean asks softly, salt round at the ready. The horses aren't doing anything, just standing there. He thinks he can maybe hear the rustle of reins, too, and the creak of something behind them, like a carriage or trap.

"I dunno," Sam murmurs. "I've heard of echoes- people that die and then keep doing their same routines, like walking to work or cleaning the rooms if they were a maid, or something- they're not really ghosts, just echoes. Sometimes they're not visible. Normal vengeful spirits aren't usually able to come with things like horse-drawn carriages."

Dean rolls his eyes and knocks a shoulder into his brother's chest. "Thanks, professor," he snaps sarcastically. "Do we start shooting or not?"

Sam frowns, ignoring the shove. "I don't think so," he says uncertainly. "Echoes aren't really ghosts, you know? They won't interact or anything because they're not really there. Eventually they just fade away by themselves. But I've never heard of an echo having their horses and carriage with them."

"Huh," Dean says. He raises his shotgun and fires.

Sam swears loudly, caught off-guard by the unexpected blast. For a moment Dean thinks the salt round is going to go straight through the horses, probably put a pattern of pockmarks in the far wall of the bridge that'll piss off whatever historical society takes care of the thing.

The horses whinny loudly and hooves crash against the wood floor. There's a crunching sound of packed salt hitting something hard and wooden, then the bridge is silent.

There's no sign that the salt round hit the wall.

Dean stares. Next to him, Sam is frowning.

"Huh," he says finally. "That's different."

There's not really anything they can do with an empty bridge so they make their way to the nearest town to set up camp. It's getting pretty late in the evening, and Dean can hear his stomach growling.

"Hey, you hungry?" he asks, whacking Sam on the shoulder to get his attention.

Sam's mouth turns down in an exaggerated pout and he rubs his shoulder. "You could've just asked," he complains.

He's obviously teasing, but Dean tenses up anyway. "Yeah, well," he mutters. "You were starin' out the window like you were daydreaming. What do you want? I saw a sign for something called 'Lou's County-Famous Diner' a few miles back."

Sam kicks the floor and leans back, arching his spine. "Do we have to?" he groans. "It's been all pizza and burgers and greasy diner food for weeks, man. There's got to be some kind of decent café or grocery store in town, can't we stop there?"

"Hey, no whining from the passenger seat," Dean barks, and he reaches out and cuffs Sam on the back of the head.

He freezes, hand still held out. Why the hell had he done that? It was automatic, like a habit- did he really do that every time Sam complained? Did he really _hit_ his brother every time he disagreed? How had that never seemed _so fucking wrong_ before? It was just like when they were kids- if Sam didn't do something he should or went somewhere he shouldn't, Dean would just push him into the right spot. If he didn't wash his hands, Dean would grab his little wrists and haul him over to the sink. How had he ever thought that was okay?

"Dude," Sam grumbles, shoving his hand away. "Touchy, much?" Sam laughs like there's nothing at all wrong, but Dean can see him rubbing the back of his head out of the corner of his eye.

Dean's hands clench on the steering wheel. Was Sam so used to this- the hitting and slapping and shoving and getting put down and ridiculed- was he so used to it that he didn't even notice? Isn't that one of the signs of abuse, when the person starts to believe that being hurt is okay?

Dean doesn't answer, and he ignores Sam's curious looks, but he drives straight past Lou's Diner and pulls to a stop outside the Dandelion Café instead.

SPN SPN SPN

Sam's always in a good mood after he gets to load up on leaves and vitamins, so by the time they get back to the motel room after Dean grudgingly downs a grilled chicken sandwich and Sam consumes half his weight in salad greens and raw vegetables, Dean's brother is pretty much beatific. Dean's still hungry, and it's making him cranky.

"That was awesome," Sam sighs as he unlocks the door and practically floats inside. Dean grunts and pushes in after him. The room doesn't help his mood- the walls, curtains, and blankets are all a blinding white that's giving him a headache, and the carpet is some psychedelic optical illusion pattern that's making his stomach turn.

"If it takes us a while to figure out the ghost horses thing I won't mind," Sam continues, dropping his bag onto the far bed and stretching up to plant his palms flat on the white popcorn ceiling. "They had some really good looking soups and pastas on the menu, too. You should've tried one of the salads, Dean. Little bit of vitamin K would probably do you good."

"Oh, shut up," Dean grunts without thinking, and he reaches out to shove Sam in the side. Sam yelps, overbalances, and crashes onto his bed in a tangle of limbs.

" _Shit,_ " Sam swears loudly, and his voice sounds strange. Dean can't move. He's just standing there, staring. What the _fuck_ was wrong with him? Sam hadn't even done anything, and he'd just reached out and-

"That was mean," Sam mutters. He's sitting up, holding one hand to his mouth. " _Ow_. I bit my lip. What the hell, Dean?"

His limbs seem to unfreeze and Dean hurries forward, dropping to his knees in front of his brother. "Hey, I'm sorry, Sammy," he says quickly. "I didn't mean to push you so hard, man, I'm sorry. Let me see, okay?" He gently pulls Sam's hand away from his mouth. The right side of his lower lip is swollen and red, and there's a thin trickle of blood running down from the dark purplish puncture where Sam's teeth went in. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he sighs again. "Hang on a sec, I'll get you some ice, okay?

Dean quickly fills the ice bucket from the machine down at the end of the walkway, but when he gets back Sam is already up on his feet in front of the mirror.

"Don't touch it," Dean chastises. He ignores Sam rolling his eyes in the mirror and wraps a handful of ice cubes in a washcloth, gently pressing the bundle to Sam's lip. "There," he says, satisfied. "Hold that there. You okay?"

Sam rolls his eyes again. "I'm _fine,_ Dean," he says placatingly, leaning back against the bathroom counter. "Seriously, it's already stopped bleeding."

"Yeah, well, keep the ice there anyway," Dean orders, pointing at him seriously. "And you're having soup tomorrow, okay? We don't need the scab getting scraped off by a piece of raw turnip and you spitting blood all over the café."

"Yes, Dean," Sam says with a long suffering sigh. He flops back on his bed, ice pressed to his mouth, and turns the tv on to the local news station.

Dean sits down at the white-washed table with a couple of road maps, and charts the fastest way to South Dakota.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam wakes up by rolling onto his belly, burying his face in his pillow, and groaning like a bear coming out of hibernation.  “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

There’s plenty, because Dean didn’t sleep- he’d run through half their stash of instant packets and gone a long way to wearing out the relatively new coffee pot in the room.  He pours Sam a cup and carries it over, setting the mug on the nightstand between their two beds.  Dean reaches out to smack Sam’s ass like he usually does when his brother’s doing his grumbly bear thing in the morning, but he catches himself at the last second, and lets his clenched fist fall slowly to his side.  Then he stretches just two fingers out to very gently prod Sam in the shoulder.  Because that’s okay, isn’t it?  That’s not hurting him.  “You gonna be ready to head out pretty soon?” he asks, wheeling back to the open laptop on the table.  “We can stop and get breakfast at your tree-hugger café before we go, they open in about twenty minutes.”

Sam lets out a deep, gusty sigh into his pillow, then reluctantly rolls over and sits up.  His hair sticks out like rats have been chewing on it all night.  Dean bites his lip.

“Come on, man, just let me- five minutes in the bathroom with some scissors, huh?  I can fix _all_ that mess.”  Dean waves his hands to encompass the whole disaster zone that is his brother’s head.  Sam raises a pale eyebrow.  “You have split ends,” Dean tries.

“That’s a goddamn lie and you know it.”  Sam chugs his coffee in three gulps but keeps his gaze fixed on Dean, his eyes squinting smugly.  “Aaahh.  My hair is perfectly healthy, jerk.  I’m gonna grab a shower, you want in there first?”

“Nah, go ahead.”  Dean waves him on, but Sam doesn’t move- just keeps looking at Dean, head tilted in mild confusion.  Dean forces a smile.  “Bitch,” he adds.  God, how had he ever thought it was cool to let his brother know he loved him by swearing at him?

Sam grins and throws a pillow at his face.

SPN SPN SPN

Dean makes Sam change his order from waffles and bacon to pancakes and eggs so he won’t scrape the scab on his lip.  Sam bitches about it like a good little brother but doesn’t really seem to mind, because the pancakes come with homemade fruit compote and the eggs come with some kind of non-American cheese that he goes crazy over.  Dean gets the waffles and bacon for himself.  For a tree-hugger place, they’re not too bad; the bacon’s not salty or fatty enough, and the coffee doesn’t have an oil slick on top like he’s used to, but not bad.

Sam stretches up tall with his arms over his head as they walk back to the car.  “Alright.  You had the laptop out, you find anything about the bridge?  Any idea what we’re looking for?”

Dean doesn’t look at him as they open their doors and slide into the car.  “Nah, didn’t find anything.  I figure we can leave it.”

He can see Sam staring at him from the corner of his eye as he starts the car up and pulls out onto the road.  “Leave it?  You serious?”

He shrugs.  “Well, yeah.  I mean, whatever it is, it’s not doin’ anything.  No deaths, no injuries, just a couple normal covered bridge ghost stories about seein’ or hearing horses.  It’s not bothering anybody.  We might as well let it go, focus on the big stuff.”

“Okay,” Sam says uncertainly.  “What’s the big stuff?  Where are we going?”

“Bobby’s.”  Dean flicks the turn signal and pulls them back onto the highway, aiming for Sioux Falls.  “He’s got some stuff I wanna have a look at.”

“But-“

Dean shoves a cassette into the tape player and turns it up loud.  Sam sighs loud enough to be heard over the guitar lick intro, but doesn’t say anything.  They’re near the Illinois side of Davenport so they’ve got about six hours to Bobby’s, and Dean doesn’t feel like talking ‘til they get there.  He reaches behind his seat, fumbles for the ever-changing plastic bag he keeps there just for this purpose, and blindly pulls out one of the books filling the bag.  He throws it at Sam.  “Here.  Stick your nose in that and shut up.”

Sam sticks his tongue out and follows that up with a grin as he flips the book to check out the cover, but he’s also rubbing his sternum where the spine of the book hit him after Dean threw it.  Dean tightens his hands around the wheel and drives.

SPN SPN SPN

“Is there anything chasing you that I wanna know about?” Bobby asks from the front porch as soon as Dean climbs out of the car.

“Just needed to come and do some research,” Dean assures him.  Sam calls out a hello to Bobby as he maneuvers his long legs out of the car.  “Get your bag,” Dean tells him, and reaches into the back to grab his own.

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up.  “How long are we gonna be staying?”

Dean shrugs, eyes on the car as he slams his door shut, and trudges up to the house.  Sam quickly catches up behind him and Bobby gives him a clap on the shoulder as they head inside.

“Good to see you boys, even if you got worse manners than your daddy.  Gimme a call next time you’re comin’ up this way and I’ll stock the kitchen.”

Dean stops in the entry hall and frowns at him.  “Do you have ground beef?”

“’Course I do.”

“Do you have beer?”

Bobby glares at him.  “Who do you think I am?”

Dean turns and keeps walking.  “Well, then, what else is there to stock up on?”

Bobby snorts behind him.  Or maybe it’s Sam.  Sammy went through a phase when he was nine or ten where he thought Bobby was just the coolest guy in the world, after Dean, and tried to mimic everything the old hunter did.  He never did get the walk down, but he got pretty damn good at snorting under his breath and calling everybody other than Dean ‘idjits’ in just the right tone.

Dean kicks his bag into a corner of the living room and collapses onto the sofa, stretching his back until it cracks.  Sam drops into a chair next to him.

“So what are you two hunting?” Bobby calls from the kitchen.  He comes in with an open beer in one hand and two in the other, which he offers Dean and Sam.

“I dunno,” Sam answers petulantly, taking his beer and a long swig.  “He wouldn’t tell me this morning, just turned his music up to deafening and left me in the passenger seat with a biography of Calvin Coolidge.”  He and Bobby share a commiserating look.  Dean glares.

“Oh, I’m so sorry it wasn’t the next book in that vampire romance series you love so much,” he snaps.  “I just grabbed everything in the 25₵ bin, okay?  It’s not like I actually checked to see what was in there.”

Sam gives him a level stare.  “Dean, if you ever try to buy me a copy of Twilight, I will disown you and then shoot you.”

“Fair enough.”  Dean takes a sip of his beer.

“So, you ever gonna tell me what you’re here for?” Bobby asks.

Dean figures there’s not really any easy way to do this, so he just says it.  “Oh.  Yeah.  So, I lied.  There’s no hunt.  Sam, I’m gonna go off on my own for a while.  Bobby, you don’t mind if he stays here, right?”

Bobby just frowns at him.  Sam starts and sits forward.  “Dean, what?”

“What, what?  You’re gonna go back off on _your_ own sooner or later, right?  Go back and finish school, be that big-shot lawyer?  I can’t let my one-man hunting skills get rusty, can I?”  Dean takes a deep drink and plasters on an easy smile.  “Hell, you can look into enrolling somewhere around here if you want for now.  How long is one quarter or semester or whatever?”

“Dean, what’s going on, man?” Sam asks.  He sounds nervous, like he’s two seconds away from reaching for a silver knife or some holy water.

Dean shrugs, drains his beer, and sets the empty bottle down on the floor.  “Come on, Sammy, can’t I just want to get a couple good easy hunts in on my own now and then?  It’s like my version of that yoga meditation crap you do.”

“Okay,” Sam says uncertainly. 

“Okay,” Dean repeats with a grin, like it’s all settled and good.  He slaps his hands on his knees, stands up, and slings his bag back over his shoulder.  He reaches out and very carefully, very gently ruffles Sam’s hair.  “Hey, you never know.  Maybe you’ll decide you like it better staying here and helping Bobby research shit for everybody than you do stuck in a car all day and digging up graves every night.”

“Dean,” Sam says, and he’s starting to look upset, pulling out those puppy eyes that make Dean feel like he’s just kicked his brother on the ground.  But he knows he’s doing the right thing, here, so he turns away and heads out.

Bobby still hasn’t said a word, but he follows him out to the car.  Dean can just see through the window that Sam hasn’t moved from his seat.  “I don’t know what fool things are runnin’ through your head, boy,” Bobby tells him in a low voice as he climbs in behind the wheel.  “But whatever you’re tryin’ to do, you are makin’ one hell of a big mistake.”

Dean looks up at him, one hand on the door handle.  He smiles tightly.  “I’m really not,” he says, and pulls the door shut with a slam.  He drives away without looking back.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Dean takes out a poltergeist in a townhouse in Iowa and nearly gets thrown down the stairs because he forgets Sam's not behind him with the rock salt. He calls Bobby up four states later to ask what kind of supernatural pest can run off all the squirrels and birds of a town exactly every three months on the new moon, and when Sam grabs the phone away and starts jabbering enthusiastically about some vampire six-legged miniature goat thing, Dean smiles and truthfully promises to call back for any research he needs done. Sam likes research, always has- maybe this way he'll see how much more he likes reading about the uglies than he likes getting beat up by them every night. And getting beat up by Dean every day.

He only gets knocked into two walls by the next ghost before remembering that Sam's not outside, digging up the body.

So, they make their separate ways. Dean calls every few days and Sam always has an encyclopaedic knowledge of his hunt waiting for him. Dean lets him ramble on over the phone about the history of some pre-Pilgrim Viking settlements in the northeast and how they might have brought some Nordic goblin things along on their ships like rats.

"And then they could have interacted with the native North American goblin things, and sort of learned from each other- maybe they even reproduced, I've never seen any information beyond speculation of how goblin things breed. And then you'd have hybrid vigor-"

"Sammy, that's real interesting," Dean interrupts. "It's really nice you wanna tell me all about the goblin things. But can it wait until tonight, kiddo? I'm kinda tryin' to work right now." Dean can practically feel the force of Sam's Cro-Magnon eyebrows glaring at him over the phone.

"Fine," Sam says flippantly. "Bobby wants to talk to you. Call him first thing tomorrow, he's out doing something with the tow truck tonight." Then he hangs up before Dean can answer.

"Bitch," he says fondly.

SPN SPN SPN

"Dean, you have to come get your brother."

"Why, what's wrong with him?" Dean asks. He's still pretty close to town so he takes a quick glance through all the car mirrors, making sure no policemen or sheriffs are around to pull him over for using his cell phone behind the wheel.

"He's driving me insane and himself ill. Get back here by the day after tomorrow or I won't be held responsible for my actions."

"Just- just slow down a minute. What's he doing, huh?"

"He's _pining_ ," Bobby growls. "He's not eating and he's not sleeping. He stays up all hours makin' sure he's got every last bit of information for your hunts, and when he's waiting for you to call, he's out there in the yard runnin' laps or flipping tractor tires so he'll be fit and ready when you come back for him. When he finally passes out, he only does it on the sofa- I can't even get him to put his bag upstairs, let alone his sacked-out self!"

"He's just adjusting, he'll be fine." Dean tries to sound confident. "Just let him alphabetize your library shelves or something, that'll make him happy."

"He's _already_ alphabetized the library shelves," Bobby snaps. "And sorted them out by topic, age, language, color, and size."

"Well, there you go, then. OCD shit like that means he's getting back to normal already. Soon he'll be trying to sell you on the wonders of organics."

"God save me from boneheaded Winchesters," Bobby mutters. "I need a goddamn drink. Where- what- Sam! You can't organize everything assuming everybody's the same height as you are! I can't reach any of the alcohol," he tells Dean irritably.  "He did the same thing in the kitchen, put everything up in those top cupboards that are empty for a damn _reason_. Goddammit! _SAM!_ "

" _What_?" Dean can just hear big, heavy feet clomping down stairs.

"What the hell were you doing up there?"

"Cleaning out the attic. You had a lot of junk up there, I already bagged it up and took it out to one of the sheds so you can go through it."

"Why?"

"I figured you could expand. I can install a whole spell-lab up there for when we need it, put some of the less-used books and equipment up there, maybe set up some proper armory shelves, blow up a map of the US to cover one of the walls..."

"Do you see, Dean?" Bobby shouts down the phone. "Do you see what I'm living with? And why the hell did you move my whiskey all the way up there, Sam?"

"I opened up space on the main shelves!"

"Well, either get it back down or find me a goddamn ladder."

Dean's laughing so hard he almost drops the phone. "Come on, Bobby, he's doing great! He loves playing Martha Stewart. Just order him to sleep in the bedroom and it's all good."

There's a long, muffled pause.  "He won't sleep in the damn bedroom, I told you," Bobby says in a low, rough voice. Dean can hear the front door shut and floorboards creak and knows Bobby's gone outside so Sam won't hear. "'S'just like when he was a kid and you an' your dad started leavin' him here so you could go on hunts without him. He'd sneak down and sleep on the sofa so he'd be able to hear the car and wake up as soon as you pulled down the drive. Didn't even bring a blanket or a pillow with him most nights, so he could say he'd gotten up early and just dozed off again if I ever caught him."

Dean sets his jaw. How hadn't he known that? Why had he _never_ known that? Sammy would've had circles under his eyes and a stiff neck, what kind of awful big brother had he been that he'd never bothered to notice? He remembers Sammy being kind of clingy, sure- in that bratty little way of his where he was both mad at Dean for leaving and afraid he'd leave again, so he'd just sink his fist into some part of Dean's shirt and refuse to either let go or speak to him. He remembers Sam crawling into his bed after the lights went out and tucking himself into Dean's side. But he doesn't remember any sign of Sam sleeping cold and uncomfortable, waiting for him to come back.

What else has he missed Sam suffering through because he didn't bother to pay attention?

"I'm not coming back, Bobby. I'm busy right now. If you're sick of him, kick him out and make him go back to school or get his own place- get a job."

"I don't know what is goin' on with you, Dean, and Sam sure as hell doesn't, but I have never been so close to puttin' you over my knee-"

"Bye, Bobby, goin' through a tunnel!" Dean yells. He tosses the phone into the empty passenger seat. "Bobby don't know nothin', Baby," he grumbles. " _We_ know I'm doin' the right, thing, don't we? Sammy's better off where he's safe."

Baby sputters a little bit when he puts his foot down, almost like a backfire.

SPN SPN SPN

That damn bridge won't leave Sam's mind. Not just because it's a hunt they'd left ignored, though they don't often do that- last time Sam can remember, he'd been about sixteen, and Dad had seen signs of something snatching men in a town in South Carolina. He'd been as disappointed as surprised when Dean came home one day after asking around and told him and Dad emphatically that they were packing up and leaving, right then- no reason to stay, not even to let Sam finish the school week. He'd really liked one of his teachers there, but Dean didn't even give him a chance to complain, just shoved him in their room and told him to pack. He'd been even more surprised when Dad, after just a few minutes of whispered conversation with Dean, agreed to leave the town to whatever was snacking on it and move on.

It's not just the novelty of Dean letting go of a hunt, though. Sam's genuinely curious about a horse-drawn carriage that's invisible, audible, solid, and impervious to rock salt. Because it was, or at least sort of, Sam remembers that clearly- Dean fired the gun, the salt bullets hit the carriage and didn't go through, the horses reared and whinnied, and _then_ they disappeared. He's never heard of anything like it, and neither has Bobby. So he settles himself in the new Book Nook he's created in one corner of the cleaned attic (complete with armchairs, coffee table, a lamp, a rug, and a coffee maker on a side table- all salvaged from the junk previously spilling through the space) and starts reading.

A few hours later, Bobby yells up to him. "Sam? Sam! Balls, he's probably up patching the roof by now."

"I'm up here!" Sam calls, crawling out of his seat and over to the trap door to the attic so he can poke his head down. "Yeah?"

"Balls, you still up there? What're you doin' to my house now?"

Sam grins. "Come on up, see what I did this morning!"

Bobby looks skeptical, but apparently his worry for his house wins out, and he awkwardly clambers up the latter. "Jesus, I'm too old for this. So what'd you do now?"

"Look!" Sam throws his hands out proudly, showing off his cozy Book Nook. He'd even found an old can of dark red paint and used it to paint wide stripes down the plain beige walls in that corner, warming up the space nicely and setting it apart from the rest of the room, and he'd found a few old tin signs out in the garages advertising gas and oil and Chevrolet, nailing them up to the walls as art even Dean would approve of. "So?" he asks eagerly. "What do you think? Way better than crowding around on the hard kitchen chairs or the worn out sofa in the living room, right?"

Bobby stares at the Book Nook with a darkening expression. Then he pulls out his phone, presses two keys, holds the phone up to his ear, and waits. "Dean," he says flatly. "Your brother built a Starbucks in my attic."

"It's not a Starbucks!" Sam cries. He's deeply affronted and he knows that if Dean were here he'd be muttering something warningly to bobby about Bitch Face #17.

Bobby glowers at him and hits speakerphone.  "Dean, he's listening."

"Sam, why did you build a Starbucks in Bobby's attic?" Dean's tinny voice asks. "You know he hates hipster coffee."

"It's not a Starbucks," Sam insists to the phone Bobby's holding out between them. "It's way better than a Starbucks. It's a Book Nook." He's fully aware of how stupid he sounds right now, but Dean's talking to him, so. Whatever.

"That was real nice of you, Sammy, to build it for him," Dean says, and Sam can hear him struggling not to laugh. "But you can't just go building Book Nooks in other people's houses, okay? If Bobby doesn't want a Book Nook, you need to put it back the way it was."

"But it has comfy chairs," Sam argues. "And a lamp."

"Dean, come get your brother. I can't take this," Bobby demands.

"Just sit in the chair," Sam tells him. He tries to push their friend into the Nook corner but Bobby digs his heels in like a mule. "Sit down, pick up a book, have some coffee. You'll see."

"Dean," Bobby growls insistently.

Sam gives up trying to shove him and slumps. He'd just wanted to do something nice, that was all. He'd wanted to waste a few of the hours that he's stuck here without Dean, wondering if his brother's okay, wondering why his brother doesn't want him anymore-

"Dean," Bobby says urgently. "Dean, he's doing the- the eye thing. Make him stop."

Dean gives up trying to hide it and just laughs on the other end of the phone. Sam sighs and kicks the oriental rug. Why couldn't Bobby ever accept anything nice he wanted to do?

"Dean, you gotta make him stop. He's your brother, how do you make him stop doing that?"

Dean's just _howling_ with laughter now, probably collapsed over the steering wheel on the side of the road somewhere, and Sam wonders when the last time was something _he_ said made Dean laugh like that. Maybe that's why he left him behind...

"Okay, okay!" Bobby shuffles forward and gets down into one of the armchairs. He pours himself a cup of coffee, sets it on a coaster, and picks up a book. "Just get back here, Dean," he snaps at his phone, and clicks it off.

"So what do you think?" Sam asks nervously.

Bobby shifts around, a surprised look on his face. "These chairs are comfy," he says, sounding startled. "Why the hell did I throw 'em up here?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finals next week. I SHOULD NOT BE WRITING THIS.

Bobby digs an old hip-height (on Bobby, not Sam) cabinet out from somewhere and the two of them shift a healthy helping of alcohol upstairs into it, settled against a wall next to the Book Nook.  Bobby adds some packets of ‘man snacks’- jerky and salted nuts, mostly.  Sam wrinkles his nose and digs up a fruit bowl to sit on the liquor cabinet.  They bring up their books, a carton of milk, and a can of coffee, make a rule that there’s no boots allowed on Sam’s nice rug, and settle in to their separate work with uncommon comfort.

“Think maybe I got somethin’,” Sam mutters a few evenings later.

“Hm?”  Bobby looks up from his book and sets his latte aside.

“About the bridge,” Sam clarifies.  “You ever heard of the Cóiste Bodhar?”

“You still on that damn bridge?” Bobby grumbles.  “I thought you were gonna give it a rest and work out how to run my phone lines up here.”

Sam shrugs.  “Dean’s the one who’s good at that kind of thing.  Nah, I think this might be it, though.  There aren’t many records- mostly just legends and third-hand accounts, memories about what somebody’s grandfather said.  But it sounds about right.  And it’d be awesome if it really _were_ a Cóiste Bodhar,” Sam adds wistfully.  “Maybe I can convince Dean to let me come along to get a little intel on the dullahan before he runs it off.”

One of the phones rings downstairs.  Bobby gripes and curses as he heaves himself out of his chair and stomps down the ladder to answer it.

Sam picks up his cell phone from the coffee table.  He hesitates for a minute, spinning the phone in his hand, then hits speed dial.

Dean’s phone rings to voice mail.

“Hey, it’s Sam.  Um.  Obviously.  Uh, it’s 10:30 here so I figure you’re probably at a bar, or out with a girl, or something- you’re still being, y’know, _safe_ , right?  Even without me there to nag at you when you’re really drunk and might forget to- to stick things in your pockets?  ‘Cus I’d love to be an uncle someday, I’m gonna spoil your kids to death with caramel apples and princess costumes, but…anyway.  So you remember that bridge, the one back in…the one before you dropped me off here?  Well, I think I might have something on it.  Call me back.”  Sam pauses.  “Jerk.”

It’s as close to an ‘I love you and I miss you’ as they’ll ever get.

SPN SPN SPN

Dean sits hunched over on his bed and stares at his phone, lying on the nightstand, until the backlight goes off.  He hadn’t picked up because Sam would think it strange for him not to be out on a Friday night, but he’d hit the ‘play message’ button as soon as Sam hung up and set it to speaker phone.

And then hit replay.

He’s not acting like himself, he knows that.  He’s only going to bars to get cash.  He hasn’t slept with anyone because every time a girl invites him back to her place he suddenly wonders if Sam’s curled up cold and cramped on that worn-out old sofa, waiting for the rumble that sounds like home. 

He either drinks way too much, because he has nothing else to do, or he sits in the dark watching the cooking channel and not drinking at all, because he can just imagine the lecture Sam would give him- hands on hips and chin stuck out, still the same pose as when he was a righteously annoyed toddler: “You _have_ to read to me!  Dad said so!”

“I don’t _have_ to read to you.  Dad said I had to be nice to you and play with you while he was gone.  He didn’t say I have to read you the same book over and over.”

Sam stamped his foot and stuck out his lip as well as his chin.  “You’re bein’ mean!”

“Sammy, I’ve already read it to you at least ten times today!  And it’s _being_.  There’s a ‘g.’”

“Wanna read!”

“Fine, Sammy.  Soon as you can ask me to read to you the _right_ way, and tell me I’m being _nice_ for reading to you, I’ll get a book out.”

“Want _that_ book.”

“Nope.  Not ‘til you ask nicely and read me that title letter by letter.”

The memory makes Dean shake his head.  Such a sucky older brother he wouldn’t even just sit down and read his baby Sammy a damn picture book, when he should have been encouraging that geeky foundation.  It’s a wonder Sam ever learned to read at all.

Dean clicks the bedside lamp off and rolls down onto his back, lying on top of the blankets and still fully clothed.  He doesn’t really want to go back to the place where he’d decided to stop being selfish and let his brother go, but Sam’s voice on the phone sounded excited and proud, and he can’t deliberately let Sam down any more than he already has.  He’ll try to sleep without dreaming too much about all his past mistakes, and call Sam back in the morning.

SPN SPN SPN

“This is Sam.”

“This is Dean.  So what am I hunting and how do I kill it?”

“Dean!”  There’s a thud and a sharp crack and a muffled scrambling noise on the other end of the phone.

“Sam?  Y’okay?”

Sam’s voice is faint and tinny and there are loud thumps getting closer to the speaker.  “Yeah, yeah, just- hang on a sec-“  More staticky noise, then Sam’s voice comes through clear.  “Sorry, I dropped the phone and it bounced and fell through the trapdoor of the attic.  I had to come down and get it.”

Dean frowns.  “Why were you in the attic?”

“That’s where the Book Nook is.  Bobby brought some more stuff up and we do most of the research up there now.  Oh, and we were- Bobby was hoping you could come back, maybe sometime soon, and run the phone lines up there.  You’re way better at that kind of thing than me.”  Sam goes awkward, and Dean bites his lip.

“We’ll see,” he says finally.  He’s sitting on a picnic table in a run-down park near the motel, feet up on the bench and his jacket wrapped tight around him with the collar popped up to keep out the cold breeze, holding the biggest coffee he could get to keep his hands warm.  “So what about the bridge?”

“Oh, yeah!” Sam perks up just like that.  “So I think it’s a Cóiste Bodhar.”

“I told you you’d end up with hairballs if you didn’t cut your hair.”

He can practically _hear_ Sam rolling his eyes.  “A death coach.  It’s from Irish mythology and came over with the waves of Irish immigrants.  There are a lot of different stories about it and no solid notes from any hunters, but it’s supposed to appear to someone who’s going to die in the place they’re gonna knock off.  We couldn’t see it because we weren’t the ones supposed to die, we just happened to stumble across it while it was waiting or something.  Sometimes they get kind of stuck – I guess if the person cheats death.  I’ve read a few stories about people who saw one and then, like, almost drowned but got CPR at the last second, or something, and they were followed by a Cóiste Bodhar for the rest of their lives.  I think that’s what happened here.  There have been a few serious car accidents on that bridge because the wood gets really slippery in certain kinds of weather.  Maybe someone was supposed to die in a crash but the EMTs revived them, and now the Cóiste Bodhar is stuck on the bridge.”

“Huh,” Dean says, and takes a grateful sip of his hot coffee as the bite of the wind makes his fingers sting.  “I guess.  I mean, it was a horse-drawn carriage and we couldn’t see it but we could shoot it- I’m guessing there aren’t too many of those in the books.”

“Nope.”  He can hear Sam rifling through papers.  “This is the closest match I’ve got.  Pretty lucky, too, because they’re easy to get rid of.”

“Yeah, the ‘how do I kill it’ part of the question.”

“You don’t need to,” Sam says.  “You can just chase it off.  The driver of the coach is the dullahan.  They inspired the myth of the headless horseman, like in Sleepy Hollow.”

Dean grimaces.  “I hate it when they’re missing body parts.”

“Yeah, well, they’re also really afraid of gold.  All you have to do is wave some solid gold at it and it’ll disappear, and probably won’t come back.”

There’s something in Sam’s voice at the end there and Dean doesn’t miss it for a moment.  “What else, Sam?”

“Well.” He sounds hesitant now.  “I was just thinkin’, I know you want to…do your own thing right now, without me, but this’ll be a really good chance to get some real notes on this thing.  Get it down in the journals for any other hunters who find one and don’t know what they’re dealin’ with.  Dullahan can be pretty dangerous if you treat ‘em wrong, if you try to get in their way supposedly they’ll throw things or claw out your eyes.  So…you know, if you don’t mind me being there, I’d really like to come along and take some notes.”

Dean sighs.  “Sam, I’d have to drive right past it and another half a day to come get you.”

“Oh.” Sam’s voice sounds small, and Dean hates it.  He wants to take it back and change his mind, but he can’t.

“Look, I’ll take notes for you, okay?  Just text me whatever questions you got and I’ll try an’ answer ‘em,” he says instead.  “I’ll make ‘em good, I promise.”

“Okay,” Sam lets out in a deep exhale.  “Yeah.  I’ll text you as soon as I can.  There’s some gold nuggets in the-“

“In the trunk, back corner, right hand side, in the little box with all the other pure stone and metal chunks,” Dean finishes.  I know, man.”

“Okay.”  Sam still doesn’t sound happy.  Dean wants to ask him how he is, what the Book Nook looks like, where he’s sleeping, how much he’s eating.

“Hey, Sam,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I passed this kid’s store when I got breakfast this morning.  They had these pretty pink and white princess canopies that can go over a bed or a chair.  You want me to get you a couple for the Book Nook?”

“Shut up, jerk!” Sam laughs, and hangs up.

It’s good to hear him laugh, but knowing his brother feels happy when Dean insults him doesn’t really make him feel any better.  Dean gets to his feet, hunching his shoulders against the cold, and heads for the car.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short bridging chapter is short.  
> Unforgivably absent author has been unforgivably absent.  
> Also, if anyone’s curious, you can hear the proper pronunciation of ‘Cóiste Bodhar’ here: http://www.forvo.com/search/Cóiste%20Bodhar/

Dean gets up the next morning and soothes the frustrations of a bad night with four cups of oily coffee and a family-sized platter of bacon, ham, fried eggs, and a stack of pancakes saturated in butter and syrup and topped with something that’s supposed to be blueberry jam but has the consistency of an old tire.

He calls Sam when he gets on the road to make sure his brother hasn’t found anything more on the invisible death coach.  And to complain, because what else are little brothers really for?

“Fucking low-rent cheap-ass motels.  They probably haven’t updated the electrics since the place was built in nineteen fucking ten.”

“What happened?” Sam asks.  Dean can hear clanking and soft thuds in the background and can imagine Sam puttering around Bobby’s kitchen, pouring tea and coffee and spooning out yoghurt and shaking on sawdust that Sam always claims is made of baked oats.  Dean knows better.  He knows sawdust when he sees it.  _Definitely_ when he tastes it.

“My fucking phone charger, that’s what.  My cell phone’s almost dead so I plugged it in last night to charge and the outlet shot sparks so far they singed my bed.”

“That sucks,” Sam commiserates agreeably.  “Did the charger fry?  You want me to pick you up a new one?  Is your phone gonna last until you finish the hunt?”

“Probably not.”  Dean scowls and pointedly ignores a cheerful yellow sign full of bullet holes on the roadside saying _Keep your mind on the road- don’t let that phone call be your last words!_  

Because that’s not fucking ominous, or anything. 

It also makes him think about a much littler Sam, standing on his soap box and preaching in a squeaky little voice about how _bad_ cigarettes are for you and all the _bad things_ they do to you and on and on until Dean finally grabbed him around the middle, threw him over his shoulder, and swore on everything in the universe that he would never, ever accept a cigarette from the other ninth graders in auto shop again if Sam would just shut the hell up already.  He still didn’t know how Sam had even found out about the smoking thing.  He’d only been doing it for about a week when Sammy staged an intervention, and he’d been so careful to only smoke with the school-supplied coveralls on so Sam wouldn’t get any second-hand smoke from his clothes.  He’d already sat through plenty of school lectures about the effects of smoke on a child’s lungs, and Sammy wasn’t getting asthma on _his_ watch.  Dean even used one of his girlfriends’ spray deodorant on his hair and shoes, borrowed another girlfriend’s mouthwash, and scrubbed his hands with the pumice soap kept in the auto shop garage for oil spills.  Somehow, Sam still knew.

And of course, fuck-up that he was, he couldn’t even be proud of Sam for being a healthy-minded kid who clearly wouldn’t bow to peer pressure as he got older.  Instead, he just selfishly wanted his concerned little brother to shut up about it.

Dean shakes himself back to the present.

“’s why I’m calling,” he says.  “I’m gonna shut my phone off now and save the last bit of charge in case I really need it later.  So you got anything else for me?”

“Nooo….”  Dean can practically see Sam cocking his head and biting his lip.  There’s a faint tapping sound under his voice like he’s absently stirring his tea.  “Hey, you think you should maybe leave the hunt off a day?  Get a different motel tonight so you can go in tomorrow with your phone working, get a chance to buy a new charger if you have to?”

Dean scoffs and kicks Baby up a gear, knowing Sam will hear her rumbling scorn over the phone.  “Dude, it’s fine.  You said it yourself.  All I have to do is walk up, wave a chuck of rock at the bridge, and poof.  Invisible dismembered carriage driver takes off, horses an’ all, to find some other poor sucker about to die.”

“Gold is a _metal_ , not a rock,” Sam tells him in the long-suffering tone of a dignified martyr.

“Nuh-uh, bitch.  _This_ is metal.”  Dean shoves a cassette into the player and cranks the volume.  He can just hear Sam’s laughter over the blast of noise and drives on, grinning.

SPN SPN SPN

“How’s your brother?”

Sam looks up to see Bobby’s head poking up through the trap door to the attic.  He shrugs.  “He’s doing the hunt today.  His cell phone is almost dead, though, so he shut it off.”

He and Bobby share a long, grim look.  Hunters all have their own list of rules, but one of the standards is _never go completely off the radar._   They might be loners, but part of being able to find backup, track patterns in supernatural activity, and pool information is making sure people can get hold of you somehow if they absolutely have to.

Going off grid also means you can’t call for help if a hunt goes south.

“I feel really cynical for even thinking it but this just seems too easy,” Sam sighs.  “Have you ever heard of a headless horseman type thing that turns tail just from waving a bit of gold?  No retaliation at all?”

Bobby hauls himself up through the trap door and goes over to inspect one of the bookcases.  “Nope,” he says, and the little knot in Sam’s stomach grows and gets tighter.  “Death heralds and psychopomps usually have at least one trick up their sleeves.  You tried reading the fairy tales as well as the history books?”

“Yeah.”  Sam waves a hand at the stacks of books piled up around his feet.  “I’ve already gotten everything out of them.”

“Not those.  I’m talking about…these.”  Bobby pulls out a plastic binder and hands it over.  “Those’re some old oral-tradition Irish stories I had a guy translate from Gaelic a few years back.  I should’ve pointed them out earlier.  By the way, if anyone has a right to be cynical….”

Sam knows he’s practically salivating as he accepts the thick binder and can just see Dean rolling his eyes.  Of course, if Dean were actually _there_ , he’d follow up the eye roll with some muttered teasing and turn his head away like that would keep Sam from seeing the indulgent smile, and he’d suddenly find something on the car that needs work so Sam would have nothing to do but spent a few hours alone with his new treasure.

Bobby gives a good imitation with some muffled grumbling and a fond snort as Sam immediately cracks open the pages and starts skimming.  But his footsteps have barely clomped halfway down the ladder when Sam shoots up straight in his chair, eyes wide as he stares at the detailed description of Dullahan and their…accoutrements.

“Shit!  Bobby, I need a car!  Now!”


	8. Chapter 8

Bobby’s a hunter first and foremost, no matter what else he might be. So when Sam shoots down the stairs in a panic he just throws him a set of keys, his duffle bag, which he never really unpacked, and a chilled bag of sandwiches. Even as frantic as he is Sam can’t help pausing and snorting at the last thing. “Really?”

“Boy Scout. Green jeep at the front left off the driveway,” Bobby replies and grips Sam’s shoulder. “Go get him and get back here.”

Sam grins weakly and sprints out the door.

SPN SPN SPN

The sun streams in through a rip in one of the curtains and by the time Dean is thoroughly sick of the few fuzzy channels available, it’s started to take on the heavy yellow color of late afternoon. Dean tidies up the room as much as he ever does when they check out of a place and haven’t done anything strange in it like shoot something or exorcise demons. He double checks the bathroom, not because he’s ever left anything there but because of a leftover habit from when they were young and he always made a point of really obviously looking back over every place he already checked so Sam would learn to do the same without having to be told. That was back when Sammy was both old enough to start taking care of his own shit and old enough to get cranky and automatically rebellious whenever anyone told him what to do. Dean did a lot of ‘teaching by doing’ with Sam.

Sam soaked it all up like a sponge, too, and without ever really noticing, but Dean only took advantage of that once. Twice. Okay, maybe a few times. But Sam made it so easy, always looking to Dean before doing anything new, either out of a misplaced hero worship or because to Sam Dean was basically dad, mom, and brother rolled into one. Dad made him stop after he trained his baby brother to say a line from _Batman_ every time he saw a gun.

Dean peers under the bed for lost socks, checks under the pillows and mattress and inside the nightstand for guns and knives, makes sure he grabbed everything from the fridge, and swipes the tiny shampoo bottles and plastic cups next to the sink. He zips up his bags, kicks the door shut behind him, and drops the key in the manager’s slot before he goes to the car. The weapons bag and his duffle go in the trunk. The food bag normally goes in the back seat, but he hesitates. Sam’s not there to reach back and grab him snacks and water out of the bag and it’s been annoying him since they split, having to pull over every time he wants something. It would really make more sense to have it up front. And that empty passenger seat’s been…not right. The air on that side of the car feels too heavy and thin at the same time.

Dean reaches out and opens the passenger door. Slowly, gingerly, he sets the bag on the seat. He pauses, but nothing happens, no little Sam slamming into the back of his legs and wailing about Dean stealing his spot, no moody teenage Sam “accidentally” getting his shoulder in Dean’s ribs and muttering sullenly about Dean letting some stupid over-perfumed high school girl sit in _his_ seat. No full-grown moose-sized Sam flying out of nowhere to crush him to the ground with a yell, wrestling him into the dirt and moaning about how he already has to deal with that disgusting jalapeño-cheese-barbeque jerky sticks and he is _not_ gonna put up with his seat smelling like them too, _no_ , Dean! And he’d keep moaning like a girl as he ground Dean’s face into the dust and Dean laughed so hard he almost snorted up gravel.

But none of that happens so Dean shuts the door and goes around to the other side. Five miles later, he gives up and throws the bag over his shoulder into the back seat.

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Sam knows Dean’s phone is off, but that doesn’t stop him calling every few miles and leaving voicemails and texts until both mailboxes are full. When he finally tosses his phone in to the passenger seat he white-knuckles the steering wheel instead to occupy his hands, irrational rescue plans spinning through his head so he won’t have to think about what he’s going to find when he gets there. If only he were more like Dean, he thinks wildly. Then he could’ve gotten a waitress’ phone number at that incongruous café, and then he could be calling her right now, telling her to go find Dean and stop him before he gets to the bridge, because Sam’s cutting it close, _so_ close, and that’s even assuming Dean decides to wait for dusk to go run off the Dullahan, and he must have, he _must_ have, because otherwise Sam has no chance and he’s going to run crashing onto the bridge too late, and Dean won’t be there, just the empty car and blood staining the floorboards and the Dullahan holding Dean’s spine in it’s hands-

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Dean pulls off the road at the end of the bridge, where there’s a dusty little turn-around spot probably made by decades of people trying to get somewhere else and only realizing their directions are off when they find themselves crossing a river that shouldn’t be there. Rivers are about the only feature you can notice like that in this swathe of flat Midwestern farmland.

The sun’s still only halfway down behind the horizon and he’d rather not have anybody be able to wander by to see him standing in the bridge, waving a shiny rock and talking to thin air like a crazy guy, so he decides to wait a little while longer, maybe watch the bridge with the windows down to see if he can catch another hint of this death carriage thing. He kicks his boots off so he won’t get mud on the leather seats, leans back against the driver door, and munches his cold leftover pizza as he waits for dark.

It’s kind of nice having such an easy hunt now and again. He wouldn’t want them too often, though. Dean’s been a fighter since he was four years old, and he knows he’s getting older and achier, but he wouldn’t know what to do without a good fight every so often.

So long as Sam’s not around anymore to get in the crosshairs, he thinks maybe he might just still be able to do this for the rest of his life. ‘Course, given that he’s already well exceeded the average hunter’s life span that‘s probably not too long to go. But Dean’s tough. He knows from experience that he can put up with just about anything for a little while so long as he’s got a good reason and he knows Sam’s okay. Even Hell. Even an empty passenger seat.

He eats his pizza quietly and watches the bridge as the sun goes down.

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Sam drives with the accelerator as flat as he can keep it and swears in furious bursts of energy. The sun sets behind distant rolling hills and he knows he’s too late, knows what he’s going to find, because he knows Dean’s already stepped on that bridge with just a lump of metal in his hand instead of a gun to protect himself because Sam is so fucking stupid and he won’t stand a chance, he’ll just be standing there staring like Sam should’ve known to tell him not to, staring and holding onto that goddamn chunk of gold instead of a gun while the Dullahan showers him in blood until he’s spluttering for air, reaches down and tears out his wide green eyes for daring to look, tears out his backbone for a new whip because Dean’s always had the strongest back Sam’s ever seen.

The sun is almost fully set now and Sam knows it’s too late, but he keeps racing toward Dean as fast as he can because he’s never known how to do anything else.

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The sun finally dips below the horizon and Dean wipes his greasy fingers on his jeans as he stuffs his feet back into his boots. He needs new socks, he thinks idly. The heels are wearing thin in all the pairs he has and it won’t help him any to get a blister on a hunt because his socks get holes. Sam keeps nagging at him to get high-tech athletic wool socks like he does- and what the hell is high tech wool, anyway? How high tech can a sheep get? But Sam, fucking naturally-tanned Sam, doesn’t know that along with his paler skin’s tendency to freckles and sunburns he also gets itchy from wool. Sam’s not ever _going_ to know that, if Dean can help it.

He twists in his seat to ease his legs out of the low car and shifts to his feet, groaning. His back’s stiff after sitting like that for so long. Sam would be laughing at him right now if he were here, making some stupid dig about being the older one and the wonders of yoga and shit, but he’d also be able to work out the knots with a couple presses of those stupidly big hands.

Dean sighs and stomps to the trunk to get the gold.

He wavers over the weapons, then decides to stick his gun in the back of his jeans and slings a rock salt shotgun over his shoulder just to be on the safe side. He knows he won’t need them, but old habits die hard. Like glancing to the side to make sure Sam’s got everything he needs and has his fingers out of the way before Dean slams the trunk lid closed.

Dean sighs again and trudges off towards the bridge. “Hey, Duuuh-...whatever your name is. Death coach guy,” he calls, swinging the shotgun loosely at his side. “You gonna come out and play anytime soon? ‘Cause there’s a fuck-ton of mosquitoes out here, man, and I don’t wanna hang around all night.”

Everything is quiet until Dean takes his first step onto the worn wooden floorboards of the bridge. Then he hears horse hooves at the other end, clip-clopping closer.


End file.
